Dream and Reality
About Dream and Reality
A well-dressed man pours champagne for a young woman in a mask and cape. He takes the mask off, finds a smiling face, and leans in to kiss her. The shot changes to a bed. He is kissing his wife, and he turns his back on her.
Cast & crew
More about Dream and Reality
Ferdinand Zecca directed and photographed Rêve et réalité for Pathé on July 9, 1901, and Pathé sold prints in France, Brazil, the United States, and Russia. English sources time it at one minute. A French listing times a print at 36 seconds.
Themes
Making
Zecca copies Smith's two-part joke: the flirtation is the dream, and a cut, or a dissolve, puts the man back beside his wife.
Look
Zecca shot two setups. The dream table is replaced, by a cut or a dissolve, with the bed.
Preservation
A print survives. The Internet Archive copy is filed under the French title.
Notes
- French title: Rêve et réalité.
- The woman in the first shot wears a mask and a cape. He removes both before the kiss.
- The second shot is the same man in bed, in nightclothes.
- The wife looks at the camera when he turns away.
- It is a two-shot remake of George Albert Smith's Let Me Dream Again (1900).
Scenes
- He lifts the mask and kisses the young woman.
- The next image is his wife in bed, and he rolls away from her.
Influenced by
- Let Me Dream Again (George Albert Smith, 1900)
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-rve-et-ralit)
